Radiant Heat Garage

[FastbackJon]

Wondering if anyone has put radiant heat in their garage.

I have a 24x40 four Charger garage with a gravel floor currently and want to concrete it eventually, but I am thinking about running some tubes and putting in a water heater to keep it warm in the winter. Canada for the most part is 49 degrees north of the equator and I live at about 47.7.

[Headrope]

My father-in-law has been a concrete mason for more than 30 years. He would not let me put radiant heat in the shop I"m building. He claims it will cause the concrete to crack.

[derailed]

Ive heard people make that claim also. A friend of mine in northern NY put it in his 30 by 60 garage 3 years ago, hasnt had any problems and loves it. Im planning on doing the same myself next year.

[PocketThunder]

My father-in-law has been a concrete mason for more than 30 years. He would not let me put radiant heat in the shop I"m building. He claims it will cause the concrete to crack.

There are two kinds of concrete.:
1: Concrete that is cracked.
2: Concrete that is going to crack.

We have wirsbo radiant heat in my dads shop and its the greatest thing since sliced bread.  The floor is always warm and when your feet are warm, you are warm.  When he pulls cars in to work on them in the winter the snow melts off the cars and then evaporates within 10 minutes, then the floor is always dry to work on.  We are almost at 45º above the equator.  And once the slab is heated up it doesnt take very much heat to keep it warm.

The tubing for rough in cost about $1 a foot from Wirsbo, but you can buy what ever brand you want.  And all you need is an electric mini boiler, i wouldn't suggest using a hot water heater.  A mini boiler should be more efficient.

Make sure you spend the extra $1000 to lay down 2" rigid foam under the slab to keep the heat in your garage and not in the ground.

Paul
in St. Paul

[Todd Wilson]

A friend of mine has it in his shop and hasnt any problems. That type of heating is awesome! Especially if you are working low or laying on the floor to work on something. No cold concrete to drafts.


Todd

[Charger74]

The guy next door to my sister built a garage this last summer and he put it in.   Don't know if he has everything hooked up totally yet but that is definetly what I want to do when I get to build my garage.

[69 OUR/TEA]

Hi FastbackJon,when I built my addition it was a garage underneath with living space on top,and to not have living space above a cold garage I would have to heat it,and the most efficient way to heat a garage is in the slab as concrete holds heat for a long time,and once brought up to temp,it takes almost nothing to maintain the temp.Not to mention being radiant heat,everything in the garage will get to the temp you set it to.I will be setting mine for just 45-50,but it will feel warmer than that as it is radiant,which heats objects not air.Example,the oil in the engine of your car will be 45-50,open your toolbox and your wrenches are 45-50,and so on.My system was heat load designed for 0 degree temp outside with 10 mph wind,my walls are 2x6 and garage doors are r-16 rated.It came out to be a 18,000 b.t.u heat loss,so to be safe I would need 32-40 k b.t.u.'s.And get this, the water temp required to run it ,is only 78 degrees.There is why it is so efficient.The way it is done around the area I live is,you put down this special 1/4 inch bubble wrap insulation,10 gage 6"x6" screen,and then the wirsbo tubing ran 1 foot on center,tied to the screen every two feet, covering the area.These runs can only be so long ,then have to return back to your manifold system.In my floor there are 5 -247 foot loops,so total of about 1,250 feet of this tubing.Also a floor box to put the thermostat sensor to read concrete temp.I needed a boiler because of 2 hydro air units in the house anyway,so I went with a boiler,but the place that did my design absolutely stated that I could have just used a 40,000 b.t.u hot water heater as the source,a closed loop system,this being the heater,pump,and expansion tank,and manifolds.Here is a pic of  before the concrete so you can see what it looked like.I added this garage off of my existing garage,but unfortunately the slab in the other attached garage was already there,and I will have to put a little form of heat in it,but I'm sure a 6" heated slab will transfer some back into the other.One other thing to keep in mind,like I did,I will be putting a lift in,so I got the pad layout measurements from the supplier to set over the tubing away so I don't drill into them,that would not be good.Plan out any future drilling that you might have to do.

[daytonalo]

I have to agree that radant is the way to go period ! That is only if your doing new construction , I had no choice on the property I purchased had a garage in place , so I installed  A hanging forced air system . One more plus about radiant and its the biggest advantage to me is NO DUST >

[dkn1997]

For constant temp maintenance, radiant is the way to go.  If installed properly, it won't crack the concrete.  Not cheap.  my friend has a 30x70 he just intalled it in.  not runnign yet, but cost about 7-8k for it.  He did not do any himself, paid someone. and since the garage is detached from the house, about 150' of pipe had to be run from house to garage because it runs off the house boiler.

[Blown70]

 

[ITSA426]

I heat my garage floor with electric cable plowed into the sand below the concrete.  It's a small area, about 450 square feet, but with off peak rates from the co op it adds about $1 a day to stay warm.  My brother heats about 1200 s.f. with Wirsbo (hot water) and it stays comfy.  Hot floor is the only way to go.

[Chryco Psycho]

I would not heat any other way radient floor heat is awesome

[Headrope]

How thick a slab do y'all have and how long did it last before cracks formed?